After the events of UFC 166, the heavyweight division is now the UFC’s least thrilling.

Heavyweight is the new middleweight. That is to say that the heavyweight division under Cain Velasquez‘s brutal, face-rearranging reign will resemble the middleweight division under Anderson Silva during his peak — a boring division where no fighter is a threat to the champ. A division where everybody says, “Meh, who cares about who’s challenging for the heavyweight title? Cain is going to destroy him anyway.”

The only fighter to ever humble Cain Velasquez was Junior Dos Santos. But Dos Santos couldn’t repeat his success. Velasquez wrought terrible vengeance on the Brazilian in the rematch at UFC 155, and then again in the rubber match at UFC 166.

Earlier this year, I predicted that the UFC heavyweight division would become stagnant and dull:

Both men are insanely talented. But that’s the problem — they’re both so talented that the rest of the fighters in the division aren’t a match for them. The only challenge to Velasquez is Dos Santos. The only challenge to Dos Santos is Velasquez.

Earlier this week, Nick Diaz friend and teammate Gilbert Melendez (who fights Diego Sanchez this Saturday at UFC 166) offered his opinion that “I think with the right opportunity, for the right thing, [Diaz will] come out [of retirement].”

The first came after he lost a close decision to Carlos Condit and was then suspended for a failed drug test, and the second and current one came after he lost a tough decision to welterweight champ Georges St. Pierre last March. Diaz is only thirty years old but has been fighting professionally since he was a teenager and appears weary of taking part in anything short of mega-fights at this point in his career.

So, there’s really no new developments in this story yet until Nick himself comes out and…no, wait, Mike Bisping wants to tell us all something and he wants to do it while cooking steaks in his home.

In the above video, Fighters Only magazine visits with their countryman Bisping at home while the cocky Brit cooks dinner for his family. Bisping once more accepts the theoretical fight with Diaz and also talks about several other issues. Highlights after the jump.

It is rare that we seem to get revealing, sincere and engaged comments from former UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva in the quick-hit, superficial interviews that he’s grown used to and apparently tired of over the past seven years or so. However, a video of Silva conducting an intimate seminar in the London three weeks ago shows “The Spider” in great form.

The future hall of famer takes his time working with the students, carefully answering their questions in English about fight tactics, techniques and opponents. Anderson is talking about the thing he loves and does so expertly – fighting – with people who themselves train and who are informed and interested in learning from him. Guess that’s the secret to getting good stuff out of Silva, huh?

Check the video out to see Silva break down his favorite positions on the ground from off his back and detail how he pulled off some of his best moves. Also, he does all of it in glasses and a sweater. Baller.

There seems to be a lot of chatter about Ronda Rousey’s mental state lately. The UFC women’s bantamweight champion has always gotten attention for her intensity and arm-snapping viciousness, but ever since Rousey the TUF 18 Coach began appearing on television a few weeks ago, the notion that the undefeated fighter is mentally unstable has started to pick up steam.

Not your normal, boo-hoo type of crying, either. Hers is an angry, motivated and terrifying type of cry. Former Strikeforce champion and would-be Rousey rival Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino called Rousey “mentally sick” after watching her on The Ultimate Fighter. Recently, Hallman did an interview where he recounted a story of an incident he said happened on the TUF set where Rousey told a producer of the show to shut their mouth while she was speaking to her, and then said that he believed that Ronda had mental health issues.

If Ronda Rousey is crazy, it’s the type of crazy that has become familiar to us in great competitors. Rousey isn’t an out-of-control head case, she’s a competitor. She’s not crazy, she’s a champion. And like many champions before her, Ronda is a fiercer competitor than most professional athletes. Her hyper-competitiveness, her apparent need to establish dominance in almost every and any situation, and her ability to used even perceived slights as fuel are traits Rousey shares with the likes of Michael Jordan and Anderson Silva.

(You just *knew* that eventually Seagal would break down and rub some BBQ sauce on those suckers while Anderson was sleeping.)

Not that Anderson Silva is making excuses for his upset loss to Chris Weidman at UFC 162 or anything, but Anderson Silva is totally making excuses for his loss to Chris Weidman at UFC 162. And not only that, he’s using the exact same ones that he did after UFC 117. Turns out, it wasn’t an unbridled sense of arrogance or an inflated ego that led to Anderson getting KO’d, it was his ribs! Three cheers for logic! (via MMAFighting):

It was good that you mentioned this because I was really hurt. Nobody mentioned this yet (Ed note: Probably because your camp denied it), but that’s not an excuse for my performance. It was a below where I was injured for my first fight with Chael Sonnen. That’s it. I was at 85 percent of my physical condition. I can’t talk about this because anything I say can be used against me. It’s in the past. I’m okay-

He was essentially homeless. He was financially completely bankrupt. I remember I had to lend Chris thousands of dollars out of my own pocket just to keep him solvent while he’s preparing to fight Silva. And his life was essentially in chaos. One day when people know the full story of what happened, I’m not kidding when I say this, it’s like a goddamn Hollywood movie. It’s Rocky Balboa. It’s insane. The guy had nine fights. Bankrupt. Homeless. With a completely broken shoulder.

I’m sorry, Anderson, you were saying something about only being in the B to B+ range physically on fight night? Anderson? (*armpit farts into mic*)

After spending last week’s roundtable discussion paying tribute to the most foul people associated with our sport, this week we’ll be focusing on great comeuppances — cases when a fighter got too cocky and karma caught up with him mid-match. Some of our picks are knockouts, some are submissions, and all are extremely satisfying to relive. Read on for our picks, and please continue to send your ideas for future CagePotato Roundtable topics to tips@cagepotato.com.

MMA offers all kinds of painful penalties for celebrating early, and you’d think that everyone would have learned the lesson by now. But every once in a while, some asshole comes along and claims that he’ll achieve some lofty feat way before he has any right to. Call it a jinx, call it karmic retribution, but those fighters tend to fall on their face, while the rest of us revel in their defeat. You shouldn’t have tempted fate, buddy. You should have stayed humble. You shouldn’t have jinxed the no-no.

If you’ve been following the UFC for a long time, you might remember a former lightweight champion by the name of Benson Henderson. (He was the guy who held the belt between Frankie Edgar and Anthony Pettis? Long, curly hair? He could do all things through Christ who strengthened him? Does any of that ring a bell?) Anyway, this Benson Henderson guy was known for edging out very close decision wins in title fights — the kind of fights that could have gone either way, but kept falling in his favor. He got a reputation as a point-fighter who never went in for the kill, who only took risks involving toothpicks.

While the NFL’s fascination with MMA-style body slams has only become apparent in recent years, the NHL’s obsession with violence dates back to the earliest days of the sport. Although the history of the Canadian military would suggest the contrary, the NHL is definitive proof that our neighbors to the north are just as bloodlust-driven as we are — they simply know how to channel their aggression a little better is all.

Case in point: The NHL preseason began all of 10 days ago and there have already been over 70 fights according to the NHL Fight Log. Also, the NHL has a Fight Log. With voted winners and a ratings system and everything. While most of these fights serve their purpose of firing up a crowd when the action is at a standstill, they also feature some absolutely dogshit techniques that have not evolved one iota since those aforementioned early days.

With all this in mind, we here at CagePotato have taken it upon ourselves to do the responsible thing and point out a few effective MMA moves that will not only elevate the level of hockey fights in general but help a handful of NHL players really drive home the notion that they are not to be tangled with on the ice. Enjoy.

(Sounds like a good plan, but wait until you’re married for a year, and your wife’s all like, “Bensonnnn why do you spend all your time defending your title, what about meeeeeeeee, we never go anywhere anymorrrrrrre.” Ugh. Am I right? Back me up here, married guys. / Photo via MMAFighting)

It seems like one of MMA’s most untouchable records, but Benson Henderson is convinced that he will beat former middleweight champion Anderson Silva‘s consecutive title defense streak of ten.

I should be able to break it by 2015, but because I’m getting married I’m going to take some time off for my honeymoon. That’s going to set me back by about three to four months. But I have it down exactly. I know when I’m going to break it. It’s going to be early 2016. I know what number I need to get. I know the amount of hard work it’s going to take for me to get there. I know how much I’ve got to get beat up, I know how much I’ve got to practice. I’m aware of it. I know it. Now my goal is to go out there and go do it.

Well, alright. We can’t hate on Henderson. The kid has earned what he has, to say the least, and by all accounts works crazy hard. He’s also just a flat-out incredible fighter and looks better each time out.

That said, considering that he has just three consecutive successful title-defenses right now, with an attempt at a fourth coming Saturday at UFC 164, and that two of those bouts were incredibly close — against Frankie Edgar and his last against Gilbert Melendez — predicting ten straight seems a bit outlandish.

It’s not that Henderson isn’t capable of winning seven more straight, it’s just that he’ll probably continue to fight to close decisions a lot considering the parity of the lightweight division. One of these days, the judges might not see things his way; you’re rolling the dice every time you let the scorecards decide the fight, and you can’t always expect the judges to behave rationally.